Butterfly Pavilion Adds Colorado's Backyard Bugs to Its Exhibits

The world's only accredited, standalone, invertebrate zoo wants you to learn about the insects in your daily life.

The Butterfly Pavilion invites you to meet your neighbors ... neighbors that live right below your feet and just outside your door (and sometimes inside your door, as per the many spiders I relocate outside on the daily).

"Butterfly Pavilion's newest interactive exhibit connects guests to the rich and diverse life that surrounds us and inspires a greater commitment to conserve all of our natural treasures in Colorado and beyond," says the zoo.

The exhibit, which opened on March 23, was created with an eye toward educating all of us on the role invertebrates play in our backyards and Colorado's ecosystems. These tiny creatures play a mighty role in cleaning the environment. Many invertebrates do this by eating dead animals, plants, harmful bacteria, and fungi. Without invertebrates, debris would accumulate, causing a huge mess.

While ants in your pants may seem like a huge nuisance, basically, everything depends on these hidden heroes of the animal kingdom, and there are more out there than we even know.

"Ninety-seven percent of all life on Earth is invertebrate...There are animals up in the Colorado mountains that haven’t even been classified yet. And that’s not the bottom of the ocean. It’s our backyard,” says the Butterfly Pavilion's Facebook page.

Colorado Backyard features indoor play structures, live animals, a virtual reality experience, and a rotating exhibit area. While you are there, you can also check out the many butterflies the zoo is known for, as well as other invertebrate species, and visit its most famous resident: Rosie the tarantula!

The Butterfly Pavilion exists to foster an appreciation of invertebrates by educating the public about the need to protect and care for threatened habitats globally, while conducting research for solutions in invertebrate conservation. It serves as the premier invertebrate education, research, and conservation institution in the world.